MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



hundred acres, and within three hours of the 

 city. It must have a running stream, a south- 

 ern or eastern slope, not less than twenty acres 

 in wood, and a water view." 



To this skeleton shape, it was easy, with 

 only a moderately active fancy, to supply the 

 details of a charming country home. Indeed, 

 no kind of farm-work is more engaging, as I 

 am led to believe, than the imaginative labor 

 of jfilling out a pleasant rural picture, where 

 the meadows are all lush with verdure, the 

 brooks murmuring with a contented babble, 

 cattle lazily grouped, that need no care, and 

 flowers opening that know no culture. This 

 kind of farm work is not, to be sure, very prof- 

 itable; and yet, as compared with a great deal 

 of the gentleman- farming which I have had 

 occasion to observe, I should not regard it as 

 extravagant. Perhaps it would not be rash to 

 put down here some of the pictures which I 

 conjured out of the advertisement. 



At times, it seemed to me that an answer 

 might come from some Arcadia lying upon the 

 cove banks of an inland river: the cove so 

 land-bound as to seem like a bit of Loch Lo- 

 mond, into which the north shores sunk with 

 an easy slope, whose green turf reached to the 



